Our human history holds plenty of paradoxes. There have always been the wealthy and the powerful alongside the poor and the vulnerable. Nations have risen and fallen. New forms of governance and power structures have evolved over time. The planet has been fraught with conflict, war, disease, and disaster. But there have also been amazing successes developed by humankind that have led to revolutions and positive change.

In the last 200 years, the pace and scale of change in every human development dimension has surpassed anything in the history of our planet. The world’s population has increased seven fold. The number of countries and borders has doubled. We have learned to fly, and 800 million vehicles have reduced enormous distances to the equivalent of a Sunday drive. More than four billion people use some form of electronic communications technology. Our world is connected in an unsurpassed way.

 

On the other hand, our successes are accompanied by tragic failures. Two billion people survive on less than two dollars per day. Every 10 days, more children die from preventable causes than died in the 2004 Asian Tsunami. For example, road crashes are the leading cause for children and youth dying between ages 10 and 20.

 

On the eve of 2015, the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, humankind anxiously awaits one more revolution that could change the course of our current trajectory.

 

World Vision proposes that the next revolution must involve “convergence,” a new form of collaboration and cooperation between civil society, government, and the private sector. A convergence model allows the major players to cooperate early on by identifying mutual goals and sharing analyses and concepts; then they continue collaborating to provide resources and technology for mutually beneficial solutions.

 

“Convergent collaboration” can address complex, systemic issues. For example, HIV/AIDS is a major health issue in Southern Africa, a large area covering seven countries. Sex workers trying to make a living often live along the region’s transport routes where the itinerant lifestyles of transport workers create high-risk for the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. A large Dutch logistics corporation answered the social and business challenges facing its operations by working with government ministries to create an integrated local health services model.

 

Together, they developed a social enterprise approach that is scalable, sustainable, locally owned and operated, and transferable. Today, hundreds of health service centers are located along these transport

arteries. The incidence of HIV/AIDs transfer is decreasing, access to safe healthcare is increasing, and the involved governments are closer to achieving some of their national health goals.

 

The paradigm-shifting changes expected in the next decade will exacerbate the inequities at the root of the world’s major problems. To create a radically different and hopeful future for the millions of people mired at the bottom of our social and economic pyramid, we need to change our operating model. To paraphrase an old saying: If we want to create a world that is incrementally better, be competitive. If we want to create a world that is exponentially better, be cooperative.

 

Developing opportunities for convergent collaboration and cooperation is both my plea and my commitment as the new CEO of World Vision International.

World Vision is a Christian relief, development, and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families, and communities to overcome poverty and injustice in nearly 100 countries.